thank ♪ ♪ captioning sponsored by cbs >> o'donnell: tonight, new cases of coronavirus decline across the nation, but one top health expert warns the u.s. is in the eye of the hurricane, as new virus strains show up at an alarming rate in america. super spreader fears after maskless super bowl celebrations, and the news tonight that a highly contagious strain of covid 19 could be dominant in the u.s. in just weeks, worrying health officials. plus the one vaccine that may be ineffective agaie south ening schools, exclusive iewith t president whatsays nds to happen to get kids back in the classroom. is this a national emergency? >> it is a national emergency. >> o'donnell: breaking news, a

florida water system hacked. authorities uncover a cyber attack meant to poison drinking water. how an operator figured it out just in time. impeachment trial looms. the stage is set for former president trump's second trial. his legal team reveals his defense, the night before the senate holds court. up to $3,600 per child, tonight the new tax credit democrats hope to add to the president's stimulus plan. vaccine scams-- the desperation to get vaccinated fuels a new type of crime-- vaccines for sale online. freezing february. bitter cold hits 80% of the country, as the polar vortex hits the deep south. terrifying avalanche caught on camera. how the snowmobilers got out.

from the oldest quarterback to an historic night for women, the sights and sounds from super bowl lv. this is the "cbs evening news" with norah o'donnell, reporting from the nation's capital. >> o'donnell: good evening to our viewers in the west, and thank you for joining us. we are going to begin tonight with stunning news about just how quickly one of those highly contagious variants of the coronavirus is now spreading across the country. scientists say cases of the u.k. variant now appear to be doubling here in the u.s. about every ten days. tonight the president's chief medical advisor, dr. anthony fauci, calls that sobering news, saying that the new variant will become dominant across the country as soon as next month, and it could lead to a wave of new infections and ultimately more deaths. that's one reason experts are worried about the super bowl celebrations after thousands of fans without masks partied in tampa, florida, overnight, potentially rolling back progress in the fight against the virus. it comes even as the c.d.c. says it is finally seeing new cases in hospitalizations dropping nationwide to some of the lowest

levels since thanksgiving. and tonight the biden administration says it's planning to put out guidance this week for how schools can reopen safely. in a moment, we'll have more of our exclusive with president biden including he calls the current situation with schools a national emergency. a lot of new reporting for you tonight. meg oliver is leading off the coverage in new york city. good evening, meg. >> reporter: good evening, norah. the race to vaccinate the nation is taking place. they're on the verge of administering a million shots. roughly a third of the doses have yet to be used. the c.d.c. says similar scenarios are playing out nationwide. covid cases and hospitalizations have declined dramatically, but tonight public health officials are urging caution. >> we have yet to control this pandemic. we still have this emerging threat of variants. >> reporter: cases of the more contagious variant first detected in the u.k. are

doubling every ten days. it could become the dominant strain in just a few weeks, already in 34 states, including in new jersey where it's having an impact. university hospital in newark now seeing a nearly 50% increase in admissions. >> all these variants do is encourage us to vaccinate people faster. the more people are vaccinated, the more we will be closer to herd immunity. >> reporter: but today south africa announced they're stopping out the rollout of the astrazeneca vaccine, saying it does not provide adequate protection against mild and moderate cases of the dominant variant there. the c.d.c. announcing florida has more u.k. variant case than any other state, as maskless people partied in tampa. and today we learned the first sitting member of congress died after being hospitalized with covid. texas republican ron wright was 67. meanwhile new york governor cuomo says he hopes to reopen broadway with some limitations but gave no timeline.

>> open schools! open schools! >> reporter: tonight the question remains how to safely reopen schools. san francisco and chicago have reached tentative agreements, but philadelphia teachers said not so fast. >> the school district is hell bent on forcing thousands of educators into unsafe buildings held together in some cases quite literally by duct tape. >> reporter: superintendent william hite. how hard is it to balance the well being of the students and the safety of the teachers? >> you have to do both, and individuals have to feel comfortable enough to feel that. not having in-onrning roportnately impacng poor and minority children more than it's impacting others. >> reporter: meanwhile, new york city announced they will reopen middle schools next at the end of the month and a new mega vaccine site will open this week at citi field that will prioritize taxi and delivery

food drivers. norah. >> o'donnell: meg oliver, thank you. so what exactly needs to be done to open schools fully? we pressed president biden for answers in our exclusive interview. about 20 million american children have not been in the classroom for nearly a year. there's a mental health crisis happening. >> there really is. >> o'donnell: women are dropping out of the workforce. is this a national emergency? >> it is a national emergency. it genuinely is a national emergency, and women are dropping out of the workforce because they have to stay home with their children or, if they had a job, go to work, and what do they do? childcare is extremely expensive. that's why one to have the things in the proposal i put together provides for childcare as well. >> o'donnell: do you think it's time for schools to reopen? >> i think it's time for schools e'rstoa teacher.fe. they want to go back to school, but what they are initially

told, and what the science seemed to dictate is, you have to have fewer people in the classroom, you have to have ventilation systems that have been reworked, you have to have more school buses because not as many kids can get on one school bus. you've got to have sanitation in everything from the dining room to the lavatories. our c.d.c. commissioner was going to be coming out with science-based judgment within i think as early as wednesday as to what the minimum requirements are. i made a commitment that we try to get k-8 back to school by the end of this 100 days. >> o'donnell: there are teachers unions across the country, though, that are resisting efforts to open classrooms. mike bloomberg-- you know mike bloomberg... >> yep. >> o'donnell: he said it's time for joe biden to stand up to teachers unions because kids are the most important things. is that going to happen? >> they are, and i have met with the teachers unions. they want to go back to school. they need some guidance. >> o'donnell: and to see more of our newsmaking interview with

the president go to cbs.com or download the cbs news app. let's turn to the president's $1.9 trillion covid relief bill. tonight the details are coming into focus including new help for families with young children. we get more now from cbs's weijia jiang at the white house. >> reporter: today, president biden took a virtual tour of the arizona cardinal stadium. >> so come on in. >> reporter: where fema helped open a 24-7 covid vaccination site. the president's relief package calls for money to set up more sites and a $15 an hour minimum wage, though he admitted the chances of that are slim. >> o'donnell: so you're saying the minimum wage won't be in this? >> my guess is it will not be in it. >> reporter: that was met by disappointment by progressive senator bernie sanders, who tweeted the only way to raise the minimum wage is through the reconciliation process, which democrats can use to pass the entire proposal without republicans. democrats also added a measure to expand the child tax credit

from the current $2,000 per child to up to $3,600. >> something he certainly would support. >> reporter: white house press secretary jen psaki fielded questions on iran. >> o'donnell: will the u.s. lift sanctions first to get iran back to the negotiating table. >> no. >> o'donnell: they have to stop enriching uranium first. >> is this a nonnegotiable point for president biden and if so how do you get out of this stalemate? >> if iran comes into full compliance under the jcpoa the united states will do the same. >> reporter: the jcpoa is the iran nuclear deal that former president trump pulled out of, that press secretary also said that president biden trusts his intelligence team to decide what to do if mr. trump ever asks for an intelligence briefing. that was after the president said in your interview that he doesn't think mr. trump should receive them due to his "erratic

behavior." norah. >> o'donnell: weijia jiang at the white house. thank you, weijia. and in the history of the united states the senate has only attempted to convict a president four times, and two of those involve former president trump. and to get an idea of the sense of urgency, the senate is willing to work on valentine's day and a federal holiday to try and speed this along. cbs's kris van cleave reports tonight from the capitol. >> reporter: house impeachment managers made the solemn walk across the capitol preparing for the unprecedented second impeachment trial of a president. in a 78-page brief former president trump's lawyers called the impeachment case sterile, thin, political theater, and a danger to our republic democracy and the rights we hold dear. >> we already know how this is going to turn out. there is no chance there is going to be a conviction. >> reporter: aides to the former president said mr. conviction. >> reporter: aides to the former

president said mr. trump will be watching the trial closely but will not testify or provide a statement in his defense. >> we fight like hell and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore. >> reporter: the trump team argues statements like that from the morning to have the capitol siege are protected by the first amendment and were meant in the figurative sense. they say law enforcement reports that some people began planning to attack congress before mr. trump's january 6th speech as further evidence his statements could not reasonably be interpreted as a call to immediate violence. house impeachment managers countered in a brief of their own. president trump's incitement of insurrection was itself a frontal assault on the first amendment, they call his behavior the most grievous constitutional crime ever committed by a president, adding he has no valid excuse or defense for his actions. senate majority leader chuck schumer is promising a fair hearing of the facts. >> there must be truth and accountability. sweeping something as momentous as this under the rug brings no healing whatsoever. >> reporter: the trial will run

six days a week and to accommodate social distancing, senators may watch from the second floor gallery or a tv in a room just off the senate floor. arguments will begin tomorrow afternoon focused on whether the impeachment trial is constitutional. wednesday we expect house impeachment managers to begin up to 16 hours of arguments before the former president's team responds. norah. >> o'donnell: big week on capitol hill, kris van cleave, thank you. now to a shocking case of computer hacking in pinellas county, florida. investigators are trying to hunt down the person who tried to poison a public water supply remotely. cbs's jeff pegues has new reporting. >> reporter: according to investigators, a plant operator monitoring the water plant noticed computer starting at 8:00 a.m. friday morning. the hacker was controlling the

computer system's mouse and increased the level of sodium hydroxide to more than 11,000 parts per million. sheriff... >> this is obviously a significant and potentially dangerous increase. sodium hydroxide also known as lye is the main ingredient in liquid drain cleaners. >> reporter: according to the centers for disease control, if ingested in large amounts, sodium hydroxide can cause vomiting, chest and abdominal pain. fortunately a plant operator immediately reduced the levels back to what was safe. now secret service and f.b.i. cyber units are trying to determine who is behind the hack, whether it was someone here in the u.s. or overseas. it occurred just two days before the super bowl in a city less than 20 miles away from raymond james stadium. jeff pegues, cbs news, washington. >> o'donnell: and tonight law enforcement is warning of a growing number of online scams tied to covid vaccinations. we get details on this from cbs's manuel bojorquez. >> reporter: demand for the vaccine is fueling a new type of scam-- vaccines for sale, according to out to report out

tomorrow obtained by cbs news. >> our investigation found that there are criminals and scammers who are preying on americans who are desperate to get the vaccine. >> reporter: investigators say they found sellers through facebook posts like this one, referring to a chinese covid 19 vaccine to get around facebook's defenses. once they clicked on facebook messenger on this link, someone tried to sell them a vaccine produced by sinovac, which is not approved for use in the u.s. eric feinberg is an illicit drug sales expert. >> maybe it's not even about selling a vaccine, maybe it's just about financial fraud separating the person from their money. >> reporter: investigator tom galvin says he paid $175 for the pfizer vaccine from another online seller. so far, all he's gotten is a letter asking for more money. >> we made a purchase, a week later we have not received it. >> reporter: they are pushing social media companies to do more. >> your point is if you can find these pages, they as these

companies, giants that they are, should be able to as well.>>fini know, we've made. >> reporter: the department of homeland security says the sites are becoming a growing problem. >> there are dozens of them out there. we are regularly encountering them. we are taking them down on a daily basis. we are working with other law enforcement with prosecutors to take them down. >> reporter: the bottom line, he says, the legitimate vaccines are not for sale. manuel bojorquez, cbs news, miami. >> o'donnell: and tonight, facebook tells cbs news they took down the pages in the report and have expanded efforts to remove vaccine misinformation. all right, tonight a huge mass of arctic air is tightening its grip on the northern u.s. and won't let go till next week. cbs's lonnie quinn has the bone- chilling forecast including what's coming, a double blast of snow, right? od evening, lonnie. >> reporter: good evening to you, norah. the polar vortex is a big batch of ice cold air in the artic. in the winter it drops to the south. but what happens right now, it's

being dislodged and pushed well south. for example, dallas, texas, over the weekend is barely going to get above the freezing mark, and a good chunk of the country feels that cold air. seattle could be setting record lows. tomorrow morning, williston, north dakota, feels like 44 degrees below zero. by wednesday morning, buffalo feels like zero. boston feels like about 11 degrees. and that's not going to break for maybe seven to ten days straight. now mix in moisture and snow out there. look at this, three inches or so falling around chicago. by tomorrow about 3 inches in new york city. then watching another storm develop in chicago, merging with a secondary storm. the time this week is up, you've missed the big snowstorms, and this could be a big snowstorm before natio. this could be a big snowstorm for you in the nation's capital. >> o'donnell: need to find the skis. lonnie quinn, thank you. still much more news ahead on cbs news. the search for survivors after

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continues in northern india for more than 150 people missing after devastating floods and mudslides. they may have been caused by a piece of glacier breaking off from a mountain, sending flood waters roaring across the valley. at least 26 have been killed. at home 14 people were killed in avalanches in the past week, that's the most in more than a century. some snowmobilers in utah got lucky after were able to dig themselves out. coming up next, tom brady wasn't the only one who made history at super bowl lv.

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free access to every platform. yeah, that too. i want to know what i'm paying upfront. yes, absolutely. now offering zero commissions on online trades. >> o'donnell: if there's one word to sum up the super bowl, how about this-- historic, for a lot of reasons. cbs news' jamie yuccas reports tonight from tampa. >> right here, here's brady. >> reporter: super bowl lv was studded with firsts. >> how about that! >> reporter: at 43, tom brady became the oldest player ever to win a title, his seventh. >> there's more to come, right, tom? >> yeah, we're coming back. >> reporter: the first super bowl ever played during a global pandemic, and frontline workers shared center stage.

>> we honor our three captains. >> reporter: saluted by 22-year- old amanda gorman with the first poem ever recited at a super bowl. >> for while we honor them today, it is they who, every day, honor us. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: grammy-winning singer h.e.r. wowed with "america the beautiful." while r&b star jazmine sullivan performed the national anthem side by side with country music singer eric church. it was also a night where women continued to inspire-- one as an official, two as coaches, and another overhead as a bomber pilot leading that spectacular military flyover. all in a night where the story lines stretched beyond the game. jamie yuccas, cbs news, tampa.he 'lbucsd d

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